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John has been shaming me on the recipe posts, so I’ll sneak in two weeks worth of Lenten pot luck dinner recipes and redeem myself, somewhat. Both are vegan (for Lent). I’ll start with tonight’s and work backwards. The first week of Lent’s dish was already posted here.

I LOVE spicy tofu dishes. While I’m not one of those people who wrinkles their nose at tofu, in fact I like it quite a lot, I do kind of insist that frankly, by itself, it tastes like nothing at all. BUT, this just means that it is all the more perfectly prepared to be the canvas for a universe of sauces and preparations. Thick, sticky, dark, sweet and blow your head off spicy just happens to be my favorite. As with any genuine culinary tradition, I have no idea what I’m doing, but like any good wizard or cleric, I know how to put on a good show and fake it.

Keep in mind, these are preparations for a communal meal where a few hundred people show up, so if the quantities seem big, they are — adjust down as you see fit.

Two tubs of firm (not extra firm, too crumbly) tofu, drained. I have seen this dish done with silken tofu, but it requires more finesse than I have. Slice in half such that you have to fairly flat, big rectangles — like a stack of 3×5 note cards. Lay the four rectangles out on something very flat, either plastic cutting boards or the bottom of cookie sheets. Place a second cutting board (or cookie sheet bottom) on top, and then pile on as much weight as you can find. I stack my #8 and #10 cast iron skillets and my #8 Dutch oven (with #8 lid) and that’s just about the minimum I’d use. Press and drain (this is why the cookie sheets have to be upside down, if you use the normal surface the liquid can’t drain off) the tofu for at least 30 minutes. Longer is better. Undo your press and then slide the rectangles into large squares. I usually cut the long way into four strips and then six pieces the short way for a total of 24*4=96 chunks of tofu. This is not actually as much as it seems.

Coarsely chop one good size stalk of lemon grass into pieces you’ll be able to remove easily later.

Put your wok (or other very large vessel that can take big heat) over your hottest heat source (dragon’s abdomens are just about hot enough), add a liberal amount of a high heat oil like canola or peanut and augment with toasted sesame oil (for flavor). When the pan (not the oil) begins to smoke, throw in the tofu and lemon grass. Boil the tofu in the oil, moving frequently, until the tofu just start to shrink, then scoop them out into a sieve of some kind to drain. Pick out all the lemon grass which is probably now rock hard and flavorless. Pour out the excess oil but do not wipe down the wok.

Dice a red onion. Split six Serrano peppers in half the long way. Remove seeds and membranes according to how hot you want your end result to be. The less you remove, the hotter the dish. I took out all of the membrane and seeds and the end result still wasn’t exactly tame. If you are unaccustomed to cooking with hot peppers, maybe try just one pepper the first time, left intact, and ramp up on subsequent occasions if you find you enjoy more heat. Take the long halves and make thin crescents.

In the blender or food processor place four to six big chunks of fresh ginger, peeled, along with dozen or more cloves of roasted garlic, soy sauce, honey, molasses, Chinese five spice, liquid smoke (or smoked spice alternative) and vegetable broth — enough broth so that the result is too thin to be a sticky sauce, but not so thin it will take too long to drive out the water to make it a sticky sauce. Now take a good measuring cup’s worth of tamarind paste and rehydrate it with boiling water. Once soft, push through a screen into the blender (or food processor). Alternatively, have the good sense to buy tamarind paste in a jar that you can just spoon out rather than a block of mashed tamarind with all the seeds and pulp still in it, like I did.

Put the wok back on the dragon’s belly and begin to saute the onion and peppers. Open one can of bamboo shoots and one can of sliced water chestnuts, drain both. Once the onion and pepper begins to make you sneeze violently, I mean, brown up, add the bamboo and water chestnuts. Once the extra water is off the canned veggies, put the tofu back in and pour on the liquid. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Stir or fold occasionally to prevent sticking down at the bottom center of the wok.

Meanwhile prep about half a pound of snow peas and a half dozen green onions. I like to leave the peas whole, with just the tips cut off, and slice the green onion into very thin rings. Get both the white and green from the onion, because both the flavor and texture are quite different.

After the sauce looks like it will be quite thick when cooled, taste it and make any adjustments. If you need more cooking time, add more veggie broth so that it doesn’t get too thick and start to burn. Once the sauce meets your requirements, add the peas and green onions, fold in and immediately remove from the heat source as well as the wok itself into a serving dish. Steamed rice, brown or white, is the obvious accompaniment.

A clever title on this one eludes me as the adventure is in the original reading and making of this recipe. First, this recipe comes from a cookbook that we got from the UK. Many of the ingredients are by weight, not by measured cup, so this has made things interesting. Having a kitchen scale helps.

Second the ingredients order and the cook times in the printed cookbook are out of order or wrong. There’s even a recipe that the directions call for ingredients that aren’t in the ingredients list. Fun! This is cooking without a net nearly at its finest.

This recipe makes a baked dish that is potato-heavy in flavor. I find that it is very understated and could benefit by being with something more flavorful. I might even be tempted to add some hot spices to this in another incarnation to give it more characters.

8 oz. (225g) onions, chopped — I used a whole “medium” onion

﻿﻿8 oz. (225g) carrot, sliced — I used about 4 carrots which I think was more, but it came out fine

1 lb. (450g) potatoes, diced — I made a wild guess and went with about 2c of potatoes diced

4 oz. (100g) mushrooms, chopped — This is easy, it was half an 8oz package

Golden syrup — 1t, by the way. We used honey as we’re not being that super strict with our veganism.

Plain flour — being “white” flour. I use 1t of unbleached.

7 fl. oz. (200ml) Vegan red wine — There are many sub-cup, non-fractional fluid additions to recipes that are amusing…

Tomato purée — I love this. How much? 2T. So I open a whole can just to use 2T?! This means plan other meals that will also use this, even if only to add it to some spaghetti sauce to thicken it up.

Bay leaf

1/2t salt (or to taste)

1/4t pepper (or to taste)

3 oz. (75g) frozen peas or green beans — My casserole dish filled up rapidly and I added these later. It worked fine.

﻿Preheat oven to GM 5 / 375 °F / 190 °C.

Fry the onions and carrots for a few minutes. Add the potatoes, mushrooms and 1 tsp. golden syrup. Cook for 3 or 4 minutes. Add 1 tbsp. flour and stir. Pour in the red wine, vegetable stock, 2 tbsps. tomato purée, bay leaf and a little salt and pepper. Cook for a few minutes. Put the mixture into a large casserole dish and place in oven. It should be baked for 1 hour, with the peas or beans being added halfway through.

Here’s one of those “I get the idea” recipes that I’m going to rewrite.

In a large[1] pan, sauté the onions and carrots over medium heat in 1T of oil (olive oil) until the onions soften — about 10 minutes. Add potatoes, mushrooms, and 1t Golden Syrup (or honey). Cook for 3-4 minutes to coat the potatoes and mushrooms in syrup/honey and warm them. Add 1t of flour and stir well to coat as much of everything as possible. Add wine, stock, 2T tomato puree, bay leaf, salt and pepper. Mix and “cook for a few minutes” to warm everything … so let’s say 5 minutes while stirring regularly. Put mixture in larger casserole dish and bake for 30 minutes. Remove and add peas or beans. Bake for another 30 minutes.

That adventure was relatively simple. Overall I found the preparation relatively easy which ensures a place in a regular rotation of meals.

[1] I used a 12″ skillet and ran out of room. So by large, I mean large. A wok might even be a good idea here.